Crusaders
by San Antonio Rose
Summary: Five men. Two angels. One demon. One last chance to stop the Apocalypse before it starts. Can one disaster serve as cover to prevent another, or will history repeat itself after all?
1. Prologue: The Shadow of the Past

**Crusaders**  
><strong>by San Antonio Rose<strong>

Prologue  
>The Shadow of the Past<p>

_November 16, 2009  
><em>_Sioux Falls, SD_

Dean wasn't sure if he was getting drunk or if he was just in shock. He'd been numb before they started drinking, apart from the ache in his heart over losing Jo and Ellen, and nothing much seemed to be changing except maybe his vision going a little fuzzy. He wasn't even sure how much whisky he'd had. The bottle had been full when he opened it, and over half of it was gone, but he was sharing it with Sam and Bobby and Cas, so he couldn't have had _that_ much.

He thought.

He set his shot glass on the table beside the bottle, and the others set theirs down in a line behind it. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Dean blinked. He counted again. Still five. Then he looked up—and frowned at the last being he'd expected to see.

"Wha'th'ell are _you_ doin' here?" Okay, maybe he was getting drunk, but...

"Shut up and give me some Scotch," replied a pale and visibly shaken Gabriel.

Still frowning, Dean filled all five glasses. Gabriel grabbed his and tossed back the drink so fast Dean barely saw him move. Then he looked at his glass for a moment and turned it into a bottle of vodka.

Dean turned to Sam. "'M I seein' things?"

"Don' think so."

"If y'are, I am, too," Bobby added, picking up his own glass.

"You're not," Cas confirmed, looking worried as Gabriel chugged down an inhuman amount of vodka. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel just shook his head as he swallowed. "No, Castiel. Not tonight. You don't... no."

"Have you just come from Carthage?"

"No. Nothin' to do with Carthage. Well, maybe sort of, but you know I've seen worse than that."

"So where have you been?" asked Sam, reaching for his whisky.

"Exploring." And he took another swig of vodka.

The humans exchanged a look at that and downed their shots in unison.

* * *

><p>The Winchesters rose late the next morning and found Cas and Bobby finishing their breakfasts while Gabriel nursed a cup of coffee. Dean didn't want to know how much alcohol it took to get an archangel drunk—but from the looks of things, Gabriel wasn't suffering from a hangover, just from whatever shock had convinced him to show up at Bobby's in the first place. Sam sat down heavily beside Bobby, Dean beside Cas, and Gabriel snapped a plate and a cup of coffee in front of each of them without looking up.<p>

This was not encouraging at _all_.

Dean looked at Bobby, who shook his head in warning, then at Sam, who shrugged. So they ate their breakfast in silence, waiting for Gabriel to speak.

Finally, when their plates and Gabriel's mug were empty and Cas had cleared the table, Gabriel pulled himself together enough to look at the others. "So. I guess I owe you guys an explanation."

"That'd be nice," Dean nodded.

"You said you'd been exploring," said Sam. "What did you mean?"

"Exploring options. Possible futures. _Probable_ futures." Gabriel shook his head. "They're all bad, guys. Dean says yes, Dean doesn't say yes, doesn't matter. Even if we can stop it, even if we shove Luci back in his cage—dunno why I said _we_, I'm dead by then—things still fall apart. Sam dies and comes back without his soul, and Dean has to make a deal with _Death_ to get it back. Heaven's in chaos. Hell's in chaos. Monsters gone haywire. _Tiamat_ comes back, and she's been in Purgatory for... ten thousand years, I guess, maybe longer. Calls herself Eve, which is just insulting. And you, little brother... you don't even want to _know_ what you turn into." He sighed. "I can't believe Mike thought this would work. Hell, I can't believe we thought Dad _wanted _it to work. It isn't time yet, and we're only making things worse by trying to force the end to come now."

Well, at least the drinking binge made sense now.

"So what do we do?" Bobby asked.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out, and I keep coming back to the same answer. We have to stop it from starting."

Dean frowned. "We already tried that. Twice—once this spring, once in '73."

Gabriel shook his head again. "No. Further back than that. _Much _further."

"How much further?" Sam prompted.

"Try the twelfth century."

Sam and Dean blinked at each other.

"Okay, that's... kind of random," Dean remarked.

"Not really," Gabriel returned, leaning back in his chair. "You probably aren't aware of this, but you're not the first Sam and Dean in your family. And as rare as archangel vessel bloodlines are, they tend to get a lot of attention Downstairs as well as Upstairs. As it turns out, that other Sam and Dean were not only a lot like you in looks and personality... they also had a run-in with Azazel."

Cas' eyes went wide in comprehension.

Sam frowned. "I thought Azazel didn't get the plan for the special children until 1972."

"He didn't," Cas replied. "His attack in 1125 was an attempt to end the line of Michael's vessels. But John of Winchester escaped, and it is thought that in 1148, either he or his sons were responsible for sending Azazel back to Hell until his final escape in 1970."

Dean leaned forward. "So if we _kill_ him in 1148, none of this happens. No deal with Mom, no fire, nothing."

"That's over 800 years, son," Bobby cautioned. "Plenty of time for somebody to come up with Plan B."

"Yeah, but look how long it took for Lilith and Alastair to get topside," Sam noted. "And that was _after_ Jake opened the Devil's Gate. If we kill Azazel, some other high-level demon like Alastair will have to escape to make contact at St. Mary's, and it's not likely that'll happen by '73. We'll be in the clear. I mean, we can't postpone the Apocalypse indefinitely, but we can stop it from happening _now_—assuming that it's even possible to change history."

"It is," Gabriel assured him. "Zachariah never was completely honest about the nature of temporal dynamics. I don't know exactly how it should have played out without that little jaunt to '73, but I do know that Zach deliberately set it up for Dean to walk smack into a predestination paradox. Nobody Upstairs _or_ Downstairs—well, except Dad—will have enough of the pieces of Luci's plan in 1148 to interfere."

"Awesome."

Dean nodded. "Besides the Colt, what do we need?"

"Whoa, hoss," said Gabriel, holding up a hand. "There is no _we_. You muttonheads can't come with."

"Why not?" the Winchesters chorused.

"For one thing, you don't speak the language. For another, you'd confuse the locals. For a third, if this works, you'd either be stranded in the twelfth century or come back to a world that you don't recognize."

"Though _it_ might recognize _you_," Cas continued. "We have no way of knowing whether deeds done in this timeline would still have effect once the timeline is altered."

Dean shook his head. "Look, Gabe, no offense, but this doesn't sound like a one-man job, even for an archangel."

"It's not." Cas turned back to Gabriel. "I will go with you."

Gabriel blinked. "Why?"

Cas sighed. "I should have had the courage to rebel against Zachariah sooner. I could have prevented Sam from leaving the panic room, but... I was too afraid to disobey. By helping you, perhaps I can atone for my own folly." The corner of his mouth twitched upward as he continued, "Besides, I have more practice in reasoning with Sam and Dean."

Sam grinned. "He's got a point, Gabriel. The Mystery Spot kinda backfired, remember?"

"Not to mention TVLand," Dean agreed.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "Fine."

Dean turned to Cas. "You've got the Colt, right? I mean, you grabbed it when you yanked us out of there?"

"Yes." Cas reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the gun.

"Hang on." Dean hurried out to the Impala and returned with the bag of bullets they'd gotten from Crowley, then loaded all five chambers of the Colt's cylinder and handed the gun and the spare bullets back to Cas.

"Thank you, Dean."

"Cas... don't miss."

"I won't."

Gabriel snapped his fingers... and the timeline ended.


	2. Then:  The Conquest

Then  
>The Conquest<p>

All things considered, Sir John of Winchester had a pretty good life.

His forefathers had been thegns and ealdormenn of the greatest Saxon kings, from Ælle to Alfred, and it was in service to the latter that the family had moved to Wintanceaster. Though the family's fortunes plummeted under Æthelred and Canute, John's grandfather somehow managed not only to survive the Battle of Hastings but also to keep his land, albeit as a mere baron. Both William and William Rufus had looked kindly on both Winchester and John's family, and though William had assigned governing authority to a Norman overlord, the barony stayed with the family until at last it passed to John. And once John was of age, he joined King Henry in the Scottish wars and gained not only a friendship with the king but also a small fortune and a Pictish bride.

Mary mac Duibne was the beautiful daughter of a clan chieftain from Menstrie who nursed John back to health when he was wounded nearby in April of 1115. Her father was highly displeased that she would have aught to do with one of King Henry's men, and a Saxon at that, but Mary paid him no heed. She was anxious to leave the Hillfoots, she told John, and Winchester and Jerusalem were all one to her for that purpose. Not only that, but the few young chieftains in the area had already been driven off by her father, and she was beginning to wonder if he would ever allow her to marry at all.

There were things about Mary that John liked greatly and things about her that drove him mad, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. But Father Seamus, the Irish chaplain who'd fallen in with John, walked in one evening while they were having a whacking great row about politics and calmly asked if they preferred to get married on the spot or wait until they could get to a kirk and put up the banns.

"Now," they both said without thinking.

So Father Seamus called in his deacon as a witness, read the wedding rite, and discreetly left the pair of them to finish their row in a manner befitting a wedding night.

When John finally came to his senses the next day, he had no idea how he would explain the situation to Mary's father. But he need not have worried, for Mary's father had died of a heart attack during the night. The new chieftain, Mary's uncle, was all too happy to take Father Seamus' word that his high-spirited niece was duly married, and King Henry was all too happy to grant John leave to take Mary home and enjoy married life for a time.

John had a niggling sense that all this was far too easy. Mary helped him squash it.

* * *

><p>Ten years of wedded bliss sped by. Winchester flourished, as did the whole of the kingdom, though King Henry's son was lost at sea in 1120. The land was at peace, and tensions between Normans and Saxons ebbed. Sir John was content with his life as a gentleman farmer, and he had many friends and both spent and gave gifts with equal wisdom, thanks in no small part to Lady Mary. And Lady Mary herself was well loved by all. She was more apt than Sir John to grace the cathedral with her presence on holy days, but even he would sometimes join her for no other reason than to make her smile.<p>

Some in the town did begin to murmur when, after five years, the union remained fruitless. Yet the next five years saw Lady Mary bear Sir John two fine sons, and she seemed content to bear him twenty more.

But everything changed on All Souls' Day of 1125.

It had been a bad year generally for England, between the grisly conclusion of a currency forgery investigation, in which the mint-men of Winchester alone were found innocent, and horrible widespread flooding on the Feast of St. Lawrence that led to the spoilage of many crops. At about the same time, a Norman nobleman styling himself Geoffrey, Earl of Hampshire, arrived in Winchester and began to oppress the Saxons, the Church, and the Jews. Sir John was suspicious, especially when Mary took a sudden spike in cattle deaths as a sure sign that a devil was near. But every appeal to King Henry went unanswered.

The events of All Souls' caused rampant speculation in hindsight. Most concluded that Sir John had been made to watch as Lord Geoffrey forced himself on Lady Mary and then murdered her and fired the hall in an attempt to cover his misdeeds. Only Sir John, and through him his sons, knew the whole truth.

A pair of monks had arrived for the Feast of All Saints and had accepted Sir John's offer of hospitality for the duration of their time in Winchester, since St. Swithun's Priory could ill afford guests at the time. The monks were especially anxious to get four-year-old Dean and six-month-old Samuel to bed early that night, but though John wondered at it, Mary was glad for the help and gave the children to the monks' care shortly after dinner. And truth be told, John was glad to have the monks and the children leave the hall, since it meant the night's festivities need not be restrained to that which was fit for a clerk's eyes and ears.

But the night was still young by John's reckoning when Lord Geoffrey suddenly appeared in the middle of the hall, and just as suddenly everyone but John and Mary fell dead, their throats slashed as if by unseen knives. John reached for his sword but found himself frozen in place by an unnatural force.

Mary, however, was not so bound, and she leapt to her feet with a cry of "_You!_"

Lord Geoffrey leered at her. "Now, now, Mary. I come only to collect what is mine. Where are they?"

"No."

Lord Geoffrey advanced toward the dais, and his eyes turned yellow as brimstone. "Where are they, Mary?"

"No. No! _By Our Lady, no!_"

"Thou canst not stop me, Mary. _Where are thy sons?_"

Mary snarled. "_Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_—" But the words died in her throat as Lord Geoffrey raised a hand and she choked, though he was still some feet away from the dais.

"I will not ask again. Where. Are. Thy. Sons."

Mary only glared at him as if her sheer hatred could kill the man.

"Very well, then. If thou wilt not reveal them to me, I shall spare no one. Their deaths are on thy head, Mary. Let us see what thy precious angels say to that." He chuckled cruelly and lowered his hand, but Mary regained the power of speech only to scream as her stomach was rent as with a sword.

"_Mary!_" John cried and struggled against his unseen bonds.

Lord Geoffrey chuckled once more, and the walls and roof of the hall burst into flame, as did Mary herself, while the central fire raged forth from its hearth. John despaired of life—

—and then suddenly he was outside with the monks and his sons, watching helplessly as the devil's fire consumed the house and all who were in it. The servants who were outside rushed to fetch water to put out the fire, but their efforts were in vain.

"_Deofolweorc_," was all John could manage to say.

"Indeed so," replied one of the monks as he gently pressed Samuel into John's arms while the other made sure that Dean held tightly to John's leg. "Guard your sons well, John of Winchester. Their worth is greater than you know."

John never noticed when the monks left. He stayed more or less in a daze until someone led him and the boys to the cathedral for the night. But soon even that shelter was denied him, for after the Requiem for the slain, Lord Geoffrey, claiming to act in the king's name, declared John an outlaw and assigned both his title and his lands to one of the earl's own retainers. The whole of Winchester cried out against this outrage, for Lord Geoffrey made not even the slightest pretense toward just cause. But naught could be done. Lord Geoffrey left Winchester under cover of night and returned to Normandy, and as before, appeals to the king went unanswered.

There was nothing for it. John took his sons and began to wander Hampshire as a knight-errant under many false names, earning such sustenance as he could and venting his grief in combat. But slowly, under the tutelage of his friends Father Seamus and William de Harvelle, he began to turn his attentions toward monsters and devils of every sort and hunted them throughout the British Isles, always hoping that the next devil would lead him to Lord Geoffrey.

For Lord Geoffrey was a devil, of that John was sure. And one way or another, no matter what that fiend wanted with Dean and Samuel, John would have his revenge for Mary's death.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p><em>thegn<em> – thane, a more senior retainer than a _cniht_ (knight), a term that has more youthful connotations

_ealdormann_ – alderman, a high position of authority but not necessarily hereditary in the way an earldom would be

_deofolweorc_ – devil-work, which can include just about any meaning you can think of in that context


	3. Now: Chapter 1: The Hunt Begins

**Now**  
><strong>The Crusade<strong>

_I cannot tell, nor may I, all the horrors nor all the pains [the lawless Norman barons] caused wretched men in this land, and that lasted the nineteen winters while Stephen was king, and ever it was worse and worse... The bishops and learned men cursed them ever, but nothing came to them thereof, for [the barons] were all accursed and forsworn and lost. 'Twas sea men tilled; the earth bore no corn, for the land was all fordone with such deeds; and they said openly that Christ slept, and His holy ones._

—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, Manuscript E, Annal for AD 1137_

* * *

><p>Chapter 1<br>The Hunt Begins

In August of 1147, John of Winchester disappeared.

Dean was none too concerned at first. John was always disappearing for days, even weeks, at a time, leaving Dean to carry on his errantry alone. And as long as there was a baron around whose ill-gotten gains Dean could steal with impunity, all was as well as could be expected given the general lawlessness of the time. But in every other case, John would leave word somewhere or send a letter to wherever Dean was, or else one of his friends would fetch Dean to help get John sobered up and onto the next hunt. The latter had become all the more common since Samuel had run away to enter the Abbey of Rievaulx when he was 18 after a flaming row with John.

This time, however, there was no message after Lammastide. By mid-September, Dean began to worry. When no word came after Michaelmas, he began to search actively, to no avail. Other hunts kept cropping up throughout October, and the few chances he had to ask after John were fruitless. But finding himself in Yorkshire as the month drew to a close, Dean decided the time had come to enlist help.

So on the eve of All Saints', Dean stood at the gate of Rievaulx Abbey and asked for Brother Samuel.

The porter, looking bemused at the thought that Samuel had any blood kin living, passed Dean to the guestmaster, who settled Dean in the guesthouse with the promise that Samuel would be along as soon as he was able. A few other monks wandered through and greeted Dean, but by and large, he spent a frustratingly fruitless day alone.

Finally, just before dinner, Samuel and a couple of other monks walked in. Dean endured the welcome speech from the older one, who was presumably the abbot, with as much patience as he could, but he was about to start fidgeting when Samuel was finally allowed to ask Dean why he was there.

"I need thy help, little brother," Dean replied.

Samuel blinked. "Why?"

"Might we speak alone?"

"Aught thou hast to say to me, thou canst say before these brothers."

"Father's not been seen since Lammas."

Samuel scoffed. "So he has taken to drink once more."

"He was on a _hunt_," Dean repeated, "and he's not been seen since Lammas."

Samuel paled, but before he could say aught else, the other monks quietly took their leave. "Art certain?" he finally asked when he and Dean were alone.

Dean nodded. "I've checked all the inns where he's known. He's not been to the Eagle and Child these six months. And if he took ship, he did so under a name he's not used before."

"What was he hunting?"

"That I know not—but I can make a shrewd guess as to what he hunts now."

"Lord Geoffrey."

"Aye. That devil is the only thing I know of that could make him act thus."

Samuel sighed. "What wouldst that I do, Dean? Soon it will be Advent, and I cannot so easily get leave to travel with thee."

"Would that thou couldst, Sammy," Dean returned quietly. "I would liefer search with thee than alone."

Samuel bit his lip. "Mayhap I can still aid thee here. I work in the library; if there be any lore here on demons with yellow eyes, I could search it out and copy it for thee."

"Is there some way to track it, think thou?"

"'Tis possible. Do thou seek out Father Seamus and our other friends, see if they have heard aught of Father or of Lord Geoffrey, and I shall start in the library tomorrow." He clapped Dean on the shoulder. "_Deo volente_, this thing shall lead us to Father."

"Nay, do _thou_ speak English," Dean grumbled.

* * *

><p>In good weather and times of peace, travel from Rievaulx to Winchester on the main road would have taken no more than a week. But none of these conditions held true for Dean, who agreed to Samuel's request that he stay at the abbey through All Souls'. The weather was dreadful; the fighting between King Stephen and Empress Matilda still raged around Winchester; and even were the road south safe for anyone else, enough sheriffs along the way held Dean no less an outlaw than his father. Were these not delay enough, Dean still had John's few remaining known haunts to investigate (bootlessly), and there were still hunts to tackle—the pack of werewolves he encountered on the full moon, a minor dragon causing trouble outside Coventry, and a <em>demon cow<em> that charged him just as he was leaving Cheltenham. ("The tale gets funnier every time I tell it," he wrote to Samuel.)

So it was nigh on St. Nicholas' Day when Dean finally found safe passage into Winchester. He had long sworn to himself that he would not return to his city of birth save at greatest need... but he could scarce imagine being driven by greater need than this. If John were after Lord Geoffrey, God alone knew what kind of trouble he could get himself into that could result in his never seeing either son again. And given that Dean's family was reduced to only Samuel, John, and a handful of John's dearest friends, he was not willing to let John die so easily.

Normally, Dean would have made straight for a tavern to chase away the cares of travel with a mug of ale and a willing wench. But here it behooved him not to attract attention from anyone. If either Lord Geoffrey or John had been seen here of late, Dean's life might well be forfeit were he recognized.

It was just his luck, then—both good and ill—that he _was_ spotted right away.

An old nun was coming from the marketplace as Dean walked his horse into town around dusk, her arms laden with purchases, and Dean had just stopped to ask her for directions when she stumbled. He caught her quickly and offered to help her back to the Nunnaminster.

She looked up to thank him—and gasped. "Blessed Mother, can it be... _Dean?_" she breathed in a whisper he could scarcely hear.

Dean blinked. "Sorry?"

"It is... Father of Mercy, child, thou'rt not safe here." She pressed several parcels into his hands. "Come, quickly. We shall hide thee this night, for well do we recall thy father's kindness in the famine, ere the fire."

"Look you, Sister..."

"Sister Æthelbryd, and I mistake thee not, Dean son of John. Thou might not remember me, but I remember thee. Come!"

And before Dean knew what was happening, Sister Æthelbryd was hustling him and his horse through a back entrance to the Nunnaminster.

He had no chance of even thinking about trying to find a novice who might not be so sure of her vocation. The older nuns all recognized him at once and hurried him into one of the cellars, where they assured him he would be quite safe for a day or two. Then, after some whispered prayers and tearful hugs and kisses on the cheek, Dean was left alone with Sister Æthelbryd and the abbess, a dark-skinned Welsh woman by the name of Gwynedd.

"Oh, Dean," Sister Gwynedd sighed. "To come here at all was most foolhardy. But why hast thou done so _now_, with war so nigh?"

"Not by choice, Reverend Mother," he replied. "My father has not been seen since Lammas, and I fear for him. It may be that he hunts the devil that killed my mother."

"Devil? What devil?"

Sister Æthelbryd nodded sagely. "Lord Geoffrey, I deem. I always said 'twas more of evil about that man than mere spite."

"You deem true, Sister," Dean agreed. "We think he was _deofolseoc_. May be that he still is."

Sister Gwynedd _tsk_ed. "Well, then, to the purpose. To my knowledge, neither Sir John nor Lord Geoffrey has been seen here since the fire. But if I mistake not, an edict came lately from Normandy, perchance from Lord Geoffrey, summoning such troops as could be spared to join him on crusade. I shall make such inquiries as would be both safe and prudent."

"Thank you, Reverend Mother."

She bade him good night and left, and Sister Æthelbryd turned to follow. But then she turned back and whispered, "Dean. 'Tis said thy mother's ghost still walks abroad at thy father's old manor. An thou couldst return and bid her farewell, perchance she might find rest."

Dean swallowed hard. "I thank you, Sister, but... not alone. She would fain see Samuel as well, I deem."

She nodded with a kind smile. "Thou hast the right of it, perchance. Good night." And she left.

Dean sighed and lay down on his bedroll, wishing with all his might that Samuel were with him. Perchance he would not see this turn as such an ordeal.

* * *

><p>It took more than two days for the nuns' careful search to gain results. But gain results it did in the end, though not what Dean had hoped. The summons to the crusade had been sent in the name of Geoffrey of Anjou, but the older clerics who had seen it said that the seal looked far more like that of the self-styled Earl of Hampshire than that of the would-be queen's husband. And among those who had answered the call was a man matching John's description who called himself Cynewulf.<p>

Dean needed advice. So the sisters gave him pen and parchment, and he wrote to Samuel and to all of John's friends who could be trusted. The sisters smuggled the letters out, and then two days later, the way was clear enough for them to help him escape under cover of night. He came hardly to Oxenford on St. Lucy's Day, took shelter at the Eagle and Child, and waited there for help to come.

When the others had arrived three days later, Dean came down to the common room and looked around at the other men and women gathered there, hunters all and most good friends to John of Winchester. Ellen, owner of the inn and widow of William de Harvelle, one of John's oldest Norman friends. Joanna, her daughter, who seemed irked to have been born a woman. Brother Asce, a clerk of Oxenford, whom Ellen allowed to stay free of charge so long as he poured his earnings into the maintenance of her private library and divided what free time he had between research for hunters and copying books of lore. Robert the Singer, who had failed to praise his patron's wife highly enough and now earned his living as a blacksmith. Rufus the Turner, a Moorish Jew whose family had fled to England from Spain rather than pay homage to the Turks, and one of John's few surviving friends from Winchester. Father Seamus, the only priest John had ever seemed inclined to trust. Cynehunde, the journeyman weapons-smith, whose grandfather had been house-carl to the Earl of Ledecester before the Conquest.

And—"_Sammy?_"

The others spun to see the tall white-robed man walking through the common room toward them, and the older men all drew their weapons.

Samuel smiled wryly and raised a hand to make the sign of the cross. "_Pax Christi vobis._"

Dean was stunned, and not only because he doubted that Samuel could have gotten his letter in that time. The White Monks of Cîteaux were remarkably strict in their observance of the Rule of Benedict, especially the part about not leaving the monastery save on an errand for the abbot. Yet here was Samuel, still in his silly white robes, over two hundred miles from Rievaulx, where he had recently sworn that the abbot would not release him. "Sammy? What... what happened? How comest thou here?"

"'Tis a tale best told in private, methinks," Samuel replied grimly. "Hast thou any news of Father?"

"Nay, not since my last letter, though I've not had time to ask these friends."

"Go on, lads," said Robert, gruffly but kindly. "We haven't much news ourselves, and it'll keep."

Dean nodded his thanks, excused himself, and led Samuel to the well-warded room above the stable that they'd shared many times as children. As soon as Samuel had barred the door behind him, Dean rounded on him. "What the hell, Sammy? First thou sayest thou might not get leave to come, then thou comest with scarce less speed than Father Seamus, who lives in Grentabrige!"

"Dean."

"And alone! Thou, a monk, farest all this way alone!"

"No, Dean. Not alone."

Dean faltered in his tirade. "What?"

"I had a vision five nights ago that thou hast need of me. The coming of thy letter but confirmed it. And since then, nightly, I have had... a visitation. Abbot Aelred was convinced to give me leave to aid you."

"Visitation? What the hell does that mean?"

Suddenly there were two other men standing on either side of Samuel, also robed in Cistercian white, though they seemed... brighter, somehow. As he realized what they must be, Dean's eyes went wide, and he sank to his knees, crossing himself.

"Pray you, stand and fear not," said the shorter, brown-haired angel as the dark-haired angel grabbed hold of Dean's left shoulder and pulled him back to his feet.

"Sammy?" Dean asked.

"St. Gabriel, St. Castiel," Samuel replied, pointing to each angel in turn. "'Twas they who brought me hither."

"But... but _why?_ Of all the cares in England of late, why do ye come for ours?"

"Your care is greater than you know," said St. Gabriel grimly. "It is not true that this land is forsaken of God, but your own case is harder still. We need you two to help us stop the end of the world."

Dean just stared in shock. Samuel raised an eyebrow at him.

St. Gabriel chuckled suddenly. "C'mon, muttonheads. Let's do this downstairs."

The strange words jolted Dean out of his daze. "What did you say?"

"Let us confer with the others," St. Castiel explained.

Samuel rolled his eyes. St. Gabriel, it seemed, was much given to such odd speech. Dean shook his head and led the way back down to the common room.

"Right," said St. Gabriel, not waiting for introductions. "The short version runs thus. Samuel, Dean, you and your family have a vital role to play in ensuring that the world ends on time. The powers of Hell want to prevent you from fulfilling that role. So Azazel, one of the major demons, has tried to kill you and end your bloodline. He will try again. We need to kill him first."

Dean sat down hard beside Father Seamus, his head reeling.

Robert frowned. "Can a man kill a devil?"

"With the right weapon, it is possible," St. Castiel returned with a nod. "John has chosen to follow the crusade in the hope of finding such a weapon in the East. That hope, alas, will prove vain. It is the bait for a trap Azazel intends to spring upon him there."

Samuel's eyes narrowed. "He seeks to draw us apart, to catch us each alone and kill us."

"Even so."

"Yet he believes me still in Rievaulx, if I mistake not. I should be cloistered."

"You should be a sitting duck," St. Gabriel stated. "The abbey is well enough warded against most demons, but neither holy water mixed with salt nor holy ground poses any bar to Azazel."

Rufus nodded thoughtfully. "The demon of the scapegoat. He would indeed be most powerful."

Cynehunde leaned back against the table. "The right weapon, you say. Is this aught that I could make for the lads?"

"No," the angels answered.

"It could be made by human hands," St. Gabriel continued. "In fact, it was. But it is not a weapon of the sort you know how to make."

Dean scratched his beard, puzzled. "But this thing does exist."

"Yes," said St. Castiel. "I shall bear it for now, for safekeeping. But I believe you will wish to use it when the time comes."

Dean nodded. "Good enough."

"Your pardon, brothers," drawled Brother Asce, "but gettin' John to join a crusade seems like mickle trouble just to set a trap. Azazel could kill the _hæleð_ anywhere."

"Aye," Father Seamus nodded, "and why kill the devil? Why not only send it back to Hell?"

St. Gabriel and St. Castiel exchanged a look, and St. Gabriel sighed. "Look, there is a limit to what we can tell you. But... Lucifer's cage is separated from the rest of Hell, and the demons do not know how to reach it. There is a hellmouth, however, through which Azazel, after performing the proper sacrifice, can speak indirectly to Lucifer, and it is through this hellmouth that Lucifer is to be released at the end of time. That hellmouth lies across the Great Ocean, somewhere south of Vinland. Azazel does not know that yet. He is using the crusade as his excuse for traveling to the Holy Land, where he intends to search for the information he needs to find the hellmouth and speak to Lucifer, to receive the plan for freeing Lucifer ahead of schedule.

"Now if we only exorcise Azazel, he will be bound in Hell for many years. But in time, he will escape and do his best to trigger the end of the world. He will come perilously close to succeeding—so close, in fact, that the cost of stopping him will be hardly less than the cost of letting him succeed. If we kill him now, some other demon will have to contact Lucifer, which will take longer, and it may be that the cost of stopping _that_ demon will not be so high."

Cynehunde's eyes narrowed. "You speak as one who has seen these things as with sight."

St. Gabriel nodded.

"And I deem you sought the lads out because their kin have aught to do with stopping Azazel in time to come."

"That is so."

A dreadful thought came to Dean then, and Samuel seemed to have the same thought, so Dean voiced it. "Would it then be better for us to die? Or for me, at least, as Samuel has taken orders and will have no children?"

"No, Dean," St. Castiel said gently. "Your issue will save the world, come what may. Only Azazel need die now."

Dean nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out again before looking at Samuel once more. "Hast leave to come?"

"To the ends of the earth," Samuel answered with a nod.

Dean stood. "Well, then, little brother. Let us hie to Jerusalem. We have work to do."

Samuel grinned.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Deo volente<em> – God willing

_deofolseoc_ – demon-possessed (lit. "devil-sick")

__Pax Christi vobis__ – The peace of Christ unto you

_hæleð_ – man, hero


	4. Chapter 2: Go East, Young Man

Chapter 2  
>Go East, Young Man<p>

"Joanna Elisabeth," Ellen snapped before Joanna could say aught.

"_Mother_," Joanna huffed.

"_No_. Hast _not_ my leave to go. Folk would call thee camp-follower, and men might well treat thee as such."

Joanna rolled her eyes, but Dean shot Ellen a wink over Joanna's head, then readied his most lecherous grin for when Joanna turned to him. "Would say there be great sport to have of thee, my lovely," he said huskily—and dodged when she tried to hit him.

"Dean!" she cried.

Dean laughed, then shook his head. "Look you, Joanna, your mother has the right of it. We are very like to meet with men much nearer in temper to that wretched FitzUrse than most of the men who sup here. 'Twould be no little feat to keep your person safe, even were we never to separate." FitzUrse was baron of Bulwick in Northamptonshire and had tried to have his way with Joanna when he passed through Oxenford some years before. Only John and William's timely return and skill with swords had saved her—and William had lost his life in his daughter's defense, though it had been John's misericorde that William chose to end what FitzUrse had begun rather than lingering for days. John had never quite recovered.

Joanna shuddered at the memory. "I had not thought of that. The titled brutes seldom stop here, but there will be many among the crusaders—whited tombs who will not change their ways to honor the cross they bear." She sighed. "I hate being a woman sometimes."

"Hey." Dean took her by the shoulders gently, and she looked up to meet his gaze. "I thank you for wanting to help. Truly. You are a good friend and a stout heart. And on a normal hunt, I would welcome your skill with a crossbow. But this journey is no place for you—there will be too many monstrous men about and not enough mere monsters." He shook his head with a wry smile. "Devils I fathom. People are mad."

"I could dress as a nun."

Samuel snorted and covered it with a cough.

"Still a bad idea," Dean replied. "One nun with three monks and an outlaw?"

"Sounds like a joke," said St. Gabriel deadpan.

"I still say no," Ellen stated, crossing her arms. "For aught we know, those rogues would as lief tumble a nun as any other woman."

Joanna huffed again. "Mother..."

Dean squeezed Joanna's shoulders slightly. "Look you. With Father and me being away, some monsters may go unchecked. Your mother has forbidden you to come with us. How then if you stay and hunt in our place?"

Joanna brightened and looked at Ellen.

"'Tis little better," Ellen said, "but 'twould keep her home."

"Only the easy ones," Brother Asce suggested. "The tricky ones I could send on to another hunter."

Ellen nodded. "Fair enough."

Joanna raised an eyebrow at Brother Asce, who winked. That made her smile. Dean gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek and let her go.

Robert turned to Cynehunde. "Would you mind the smithy if I go with the lads?"

Cynehunde nodded. "With a good will. I would be glad of one place to work until spring or summer."

"Very well then. Seamus?"

Father Seamus shrugged. "I imagine I can find cause to go to Rome, if not beyond."

Dean's heart eased. Traveling with Samuel was always fun, but it would be good to have the older men there as a buffer between the brothers and the angels. And Father Seamus and Robert were both little less dear to him than was John himself.

Robert smiled. "Rufus?"

Rufus sighed deeply. "I do not deny that I would fain see the Holy Land—'Next year in Jerusalem' and all that. But I know not whether, as a Jew and a Moor, I might not attract even more trouble than Joanna. I have trouble enough here in England."

Dean had some very choice West Saxon words to say to that, and a few more in Gaelic. He apologized to the ladies afterward.

Samuel looked over at Brother Asce. "Rufus can take the hard ones."

"Aye," said Brother Asce with a nod.

Samuel then turned to Robert and Father Seamus. "How soon can ye leave?"

Father Seamus frowned as he thought, then shook his head. "Not before the Twelfth Night. But ye need time to gather your own supplies, do ye not?"

Robert nodded. "Let us say, then, that we shall meet again here on the seventh of January and depart at first light on the next day."

And so it was agreed.

* * *

><p>Dean alternated between feeling that the fortnight would never end and fearing that it would not be time enough to prepare. The other hunters dispersed, but Samuel and Dean and the angels remained at the Eagle and Child, where Samuel (writing as "Brother Samuel, a monk of Rievaulx," which was sure to gain the trust of anyone who did not know his handwriting) and Brother Asce sent letters flying to Winchester and Dover to learn precisely when Azazel's summons had come and when John had left England. And Dean took the time to raid as many Norman castles as he safely could, taking only coins and foodstuffs. He usually wore black for these tasks and covered the top half of his face and head with a masking cowl, which prompted a very strange reaction from St. Gabriel the first time he donned the mask in the archangel's presence:<p>

"_Please_ tell me you don't call yourself Batman."

Dean blinked. "N-no. An I must perforce give a name, I say _Todd_."

St. Gabriel slapped a hand over his eyes and shook his head. "Zorro. Figures. And _The Curse of Capistrano_ hasn't even been written yet."

"You're confusing him, Gabriel," St. Castiel chided.

By the time Dean had raided enough supplies to both get the small band of travelers well on their way and bolster Ellen's stores for a time, Samuel and Brother Asce determined that the few crusaders who had answered Azazel's summons had departed from Dover in mid-September and that if they had caught up to the Provence force on the sea voyage through Sicily and if John had not parted from them to pursue Azazel alone, he would likely have gotten no further than Laodicea. However, if he had chosen to take ship at Ephesus, he might well be in Jerusalem already.

Dean cursed when he heard this thought. "How the hell do we catch up to him now? We have little hope of crossing by land in fewer than four months, and faring by sea would be perilous at this time of year, to say naught of the cost." They were also likely to need to buy horses on the way unless they wanted to walk the whole distance; Dean's black mare had been a yearling when John saved her from the aftermath of the fire, and she was far too old now to travel so far.

"Fear not, Deano," said St. Gabriel with a smirk. "I have a plan."

Dean was not entirely sure how to take that remark.

Christmastide passed more swiftly than Dean had expected, however, and soon Robert and Father Seamus had returned to the Eagle and Child. They drank a cup of parting with Ellen and Joanna that night, and early the next morning, the travelers took their leave.

Suddenly, for no reason Dean could explain, he was loath to leave Joanna behind, though he knew he must. Perchance he realized that their deep, life-long friendship was unlike his other friendships or that she was unlike the other maids with whom he had shared a bed. Whatever the cause, though, he stood a while at the tavern door, simply holding her hands and searching for something to say.

Finally, he said, "Joanna, if... if I should return..."

"Thou shalt," she answered quietly. "Let us say no more 'til then. _Ferþu hæl_."

"_Wæsþu hæl_," he returned and kissed her gently before tearing himself away to join the others.

As they left Oxenford, Father Seamus said, "Dean... 'twas I who wedded thy parents. 'Twould be my joy to wed thee to Joanna."

Dean swallowed hard. "Let us see to the devil first, good Father. We can speak of weddings when we are safe returned."

Father Seamus nodded, and there the conversation ended.

They had scarce gone a mile out of Oxenford, however, when St. Gabriel snapped his fingers—and the six travelers stood in a completely different place, where the sun was already risen halfway to the noon!

"Gabriel!" Samuel, Dean, and St. Castiel cried together, completely forgetting his title, while Father Seamus and Robert stared about them in wonder.

St. Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Do you want to catch up with your dad or not?"

"How did you..." Robert began.

"Gabriel," Father Seamus gasped. "I never thought—S-s-saint..." His knees slowly began to buckle—but St. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, and Father Seamus' fall was stopped by a cushioned settle.

"Stop groveling," St. Gabriel demanded crossly. "And if you have to call me anything, call me Gabriel, just plain Gabriel. There happen to be two of me at the moment, and if you start praying to 'Blessed St. Gabriel, Power of God,' you might summon the wrong one. Same with Castiel—drop the 'Saint,' and I don't think he'd mind if you even shorten his name to Cas."

Samuel frowned. "How can there be two of you?"

But Dean suddenly understood. "You said ye had seen our offspring as with sight. Ye _know_ them."

Gabriel turned to Castiel, eyebrows raised. "He's quick."

Dean took a step forward. "Have ye truly fared through _time_ to bring us to this pass?"

"We had little choice, Dean," said Castiel gravely. "Once Azazel contacts Lucifer, his plan will be almost impossible to stop. Your namesakes are good men; they do not deserve the fate that awaits them should we fail."

Robert frowned. "Fared through time? How can such a thing be?"

"We're _angels_," Gabriel said shortly. "It's easier than you think."

Samuel bit his lip. "How do we know that killing Azazel will make the future better? How if this one act changes so much that the men ye know turn evil, or are not born at all?"

"We don't know. But the odds of that happening are slim. Like I said, if we don't kill him, Azazel will still be bound in Hell for a very long time. He won't be affecting lives on Earth, and any souls he might torture or commands he might give could just as easily be handled by another high-level demon such as Abbadon. So the only real changes will be to events that occur... oh, forty years or so before the time we left. It's not as bad as, say, preventing a ship from sinking."

Castiel blinked. "Which one?"

"_Titanic_. And before you ask, _that_ bright idea came from one of _your_ friends who hated the movie, and Atropos had to fight dirty to get you to make him let it sink."

"Why would I... never mind. I don't want to know."

"Trust me. You don't."

Dean decided not even to try to make sense of those remarks. Instead, he said simply, "Well, I do thank you for one thing. I find little joy in sailing and am most glad not to have a long sea voyage to get here." He paused. "Wherever... _here_ is."

"Damascus," said Gabriel. "Sam needs a sword, and we should probably pick up a few supplies that aren't available in England as well."

"Supplies for what?" Robert frowned.

"Summoning ritual." A piece of parchment appeared in Gabriel's hand, and he handed it to Robert. "And it's not exactly something we can do ourselves, so you guys will have to—for the last time ever, we hope."

After some quick discussion, the group split up. Father Seamus and Robert went to collect the supplies for the ritual; Dean and Samuel went to buy swords and horses; and the angels went to do... something. Dean was too dazed to make sense of it.

"No joy in sailing?" Samuel asked when they were out of earshot of the others. "Hast _never_ sailed, to my knowledge."

"'Twas after thou left," Dean confessed quietly. "Father and I had a hunt in Ireland—druid causing trouble for one of the abbeys. The hunt itself was none too hard, but coming back..." He sighed. "I misliked the weather, but Father did not heed. And we both came nigh to drowning." Then he huffed. "'Twas one time I was glad thou wert cloistered safe. Even one of thy dreams would not have turned him. Swore 'twas a sign a devil was nigh, and thou hast seen him in those moods."

Samuel nodded. "Aye. But was it?"

Dean snorted. "Nay. Just a normal winter storm. Father was drunk for a week after."

"From the wetting or the fact there was no demon to torment?"

Dean's eyes narrowed. "He _said_ 'twas that he'd liefer die himself than see me drown."

Samuel shook his head. "Typical. Thou wert ever his favorite."

"_Me?_ Nay, Samuel, 'twas the loss of _thee_ drove him nigh to madness. Ever we did what _thou_ wouldst; ever _thy_ need was greater than mine. 'Do thou look after Sammy,' that was ever his command. Naught _I_ ever did was good enough. Father Seamus taught us both to read, but _thou_ went on to Latin, and _thou_ wert hailed as the clever one, though _I_ did bind his parchments into a book with room to spare!"

"Oh, aye, 'twas _such_ an honor to be clever when ever and anon 'twas 'Do thou mark what Dean doth' and 'Why art thou not so good a hunter as thy brother?' Faith, I thought he would as lief have but one son than to be saddled with a scholar!"

"I'sooth? Then why did he say naught of rue to me until his _third day drunk_? But when _thou_ had gone, 'twas but an hour 'fore, 'Oh, Dean, why spoke I thus, he is lost to us forever—but nay, seek him not, he will not return now, and all on my head be it...'—and that was _ere_ he sought the _uisge beatha_!"

Samuel faltered. "Spoke he thus in sooth?"

"Aye. _Ten_ days, that lasted."

"I thought he blamed me for Mother's death."

Dean blinked. "For what cause? Azazel sought to kill us both."

"We know that _now_, but Father..."

"Said he aught?"

"Not he." Samuel looked wretched. "'Twas a demon—Father thought I could not hear. He adjured it to speak, and speak it did... saying Hell had special care for me, that Mother sold me to a demon ere she married Father, and the like. It said Mother should not have died but for me."

"Devils _lie_, Sammy."

He nodded. "Aye, I see that now. Even then I had hoped it was not so, but... if it is our line Azazel seeks to end, then of _course_ he would seek to kill us both."

Dean nodded in turn. "Aye, and Father swore to me that Azazel said 'thy _sons_,' that 'twas not one alone he sought. Perchance the devil knew thou heard, or perchance it had some cause to seek to drive Father from thee."

"An Azazel wants us each alone, may be he sought to make me run then, the easier to catch and kill. 'Twould serve his purpose ill for me to seek the Church unless he sought to assail me himself."

Dean put a hand on his shoulder. "In any case, brother, 'twas _not_ thy fault that Mother died, and whatever ill will still lies 'twixt thee and Father, _I_ am glad of thy company."

Samuel smiled. "My thanks, Dean."

"Come. Let us find thee some fine damasked steel, that no one take thee for a wench, Samantha."

Samuel huffed and rolled his eyes, but his mood lightened, and they took off through the strange sights, smells, and sounds of the Damascus marketplace. And soon they had found a swordsmith and chosen a good sword, and Samuel showed off his Latin while haggling with the smith to get a better price. Then Castiel joined them as they chose two good horses for the journey, and while Castiel and Dean led the horses out of their stalls and met up with Father Seamus and Robert, Samuel went to try to bargain for a third at the same price.

Scarce had he paid the lower price for the two horses that was the merchant's only other offer, however, than a mob of turbaned men attacked him. Dean, Castiel, and Robert ran to his aid, as did Gabriel as he returned from his own errand, but Samuel had not forgotten all his skill with a sword. Between the five of them, they quickly felled the attackers—mostly Turks, from the look of it. Father Seamus brought the horses over to Castiel, and he and Robert began searching for a cause of the attack.

"Art well, Samuel?" Dean asked.

"Aye," Samuel nodded, gasping a bit for breath. "Slavers, I deem."

Dean frowned. "Art a _monk_. Art yet _clad_ as one, i'faith! Why would they work this _deofoldæd_ on thee?"

"This one lives," said Father Seamus, kneeling by one with lighter skin than the rest. "An outlaw from Europe, I deem. Mayhap he can tell us aught."

Robert walked over and shook the outlaw roughly. "Here! Come, wake you!"

The outlaw woke with a groan... and when he saw the men standing over him, he paled and croaked, "'Twarn't me, masters, 'twarn't me. _Told_ Achmed 'twould be trouble for to touch a clerk. 'Twas the witch, I swear!"

"What witch?" Dean and Samuel asked at the same time.

"Tamar, Achmed's lemman—eyes turn red as blood when she's angry."

Samuel drew in a sharp breath. "Red eyes. Crossroads demon."

The outlaw looked doubtful. "Don't know nothin' 'bout no crossroads, Father, but Tamar, she did say as she knew someone in Jerusalem as would pay well for thee—for thee special, mind. I told him 'twould be trouble, and didn't we have enough gold from last year, but Achmed, he said 'twarn't gold she meant and he'd have thee soon as we could catch thee away from the others. Said as you was big and stupid, 'twouldn't be no fuss."

Samuel looked sour.

Dean turned to Gabriel. "What pay would she have meant?"

Gabriel chose his words with care. "I know of a case where a woman who had made a crossroads deal was promised release if she stole a certain relic and gave it to a certain demon. It wasn't that simple, of course; once she'd handed over the relic, the demon told her to kill the man who'd owned it, which she refused to do. So my guess is that Tamar had some kind of deal with Achmed that was about to come due and saw Brother Samuel here as a low-risk gamble. Achmed succeeds, Azazel gets his hands on Samuel and can renege on Achmed's release; Achmed fails, Tamar doesn't have to summon the hellhounds."

Robert sighed. "May the Almighty deal with him justly. Meanwhile, friends, what shall we do with this piece of filth?"

Father Seamus looked at the outlaw narrowly. "Hold you any more pilgrims in bonds?"

The outlaw shook his head. "Nay, Father, no palmers to my knowledge. Some wenches and a pair o' Kurdish lads." Then he leered at Dean. "Would ye care to sample the wares, milord? 'Tis but two streets from here, and there's one or two o' them lasses would make quite the sport to tame—"

Dean ran him through before he could say more.

Gabriel nodded to Castiel, who vanished for a brief moment. "They are free," he reported when he returned.

"Good," Gabriel sighed. "Everybody got everything?"

"Aye," Dean replied. "But what—"

Gabriel snapped his fingers twice, and Dean got a brief glimpse of fire consuming the slain slavers' bodies before the group suddenly shifted to a point on the road that was a good five miles southwest of Damascus.

Robert cursed briefly in Norse, and Samuel cried, "_**Moneto**__ nos!_"

"_Do_ thou speak English, Sammy!" Dean snapped, feeling a headache coming on.

Gabriel only cackled and started walking toward the Holy Land, trusting the others to follow.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p><em>uisge beatha <em>– "water of life," i.e., whisky

_deofoldæd_ – fiendish deed

_Moneto nos!_ – Warn us next time!


	5. Chapter 3:  Why We Fight

Chapter 3  
>Why We Fight<p>

Samuel was quiet and thoughtful for most of the afternoon's journey, and Dean thought he knew the reason but could not be sure and did not like to ask in company with the others. So while they made ready to sleep that night, Dean asked softly, "What troubles thee, brother?"

Samuel sighed. "This notion of changing history—sooth, the fact that we are even here. I would not question an angel, but... I fear making the wrong choice, making the outcome worse. They cannot tell us too much, that is plain, and it is wise, but..."

"Wouldst fain know in sooth that the case is too hard to do otherwise."

"Just so."

Dean nodded; it was indeed as he had thought. "As would I. Perchance Castiel would show us more."

"Show? As in..."

"A dream. Naught of import, just..."

"A chance to see the men they know. Naught but a glimpse."

"Aye."

Samuel nodded thoughtfully. "Aye. Aye, that would be a boon worth the asking."

"Come, then."

"What, _now?_"

"Shalt not sleep else," Dean noted. "And should there be more slavers about, or Turks, shalt have need of rest this night."

Samuel huffed but followed Dean toward Castiel, who had offered to stand the watch while Gabriel went to scout ahead.

Castiel looked at them with his head tilted to one side slightly in question. "Samuel, Dean. Can I help you?"

Dean took the lead. "Castiel... our namesakes. You said you knew them."

Castiel nodded. "I am proud to call them my friends."

Dean glanced at Samuel once more and, at his nod, said, "We would fain see them."

Castiel frowned. "Dean... I am weakened. I do not have the power to send you forward so far."

"No, no," Samuel said quickly. "We seek but a vision, not to meet them face to face."

The angel's face cleared. "Yes. That I can do. Lie down."

The brothers did so, and Castiel stretched forth his hands and touched each of them on the forehead, sending them at once into a deep sleep.

When Dean became aware of his dream, he seemed to be sitting on a cushioned settle covered in leather, and the settle was moving. Samuel sat beside him, and in front of them was another settle where sat two men—and though he did not often get the chance to use a looking-glass, Dean could tell at once which man had been named for him and which for Samuel.

They were different, of course, and not simply because they looked closer to 30 and 26 than to 26 and 22. Both had shorn their beards; his namesake had cut his hair quite short and applied some kind of grease to make it stand on end, and Samuel's namesake was not tonsured and seemed loath to cut his hair at all. He also seemed more muscled than Samuel, perchance because of age or choice of trade. The green of the namesakes' eyes tended more toward hazel, and such birthmarks and scars as Dean could see were in different places. Yet however great the gulf of time between the two pairs of brothers, the younger were still very like the older.

Once Dean got over that shock, he finally concluded that they were seated in some sort of coach or wain that had windows fitted with glass, though he could see no horse ahead of them. And somehow he fancied he heard music, though of a different kind from the ballads he knew. The melody was strange, and the instrument he could hear accompanying the voices was of a different timbre from the stringed instruments of his day. The words, too, made little sense:

_Because I'm easy come, easy go,  
><em>_Little high, little low,  
><em>_Any way the wind blows  
><em>_Doesn't really matter to me,  
><em>_To me_...

As the song went on, Dean took a closer look at the coach in which they were riding. The doors were lined with cushioned leather like the two settles, and each had an armrest with a handhold and a small metal compartment that, when opened, smelled of some acrid kind of ash. The one on Samuel's side held a small green figure of a man holding a weapon of some kind. The roof and the floor both seemed to be covered in some kind of cloth, and there was a round object in the middle of the ceiling that looked like it might be a lantern. A mirror was affixed to the front piece of glass to let Young Dean, who seemed to be driving, see behind the coach, and another mirror stood out from each side for the same purpose. There were signs of age here and there, but on the whole, the coach seemed well tended. And a quick tap on the window nearest him showed that, indeed, it was fitted with real glass.

It must have cost a great deal, Dean concluded. His offspring must be very wealthy indeed.

He had just leaned forward to try to find the source of the lights that shone on the namesakes' faces, however, when a new noise—there was no other word for it—entered the song, a screeching sound that changed like a plucked lute but was not nearly as pleasant. Dean sat back quickly, stunned... but Young Dean nodded his head in time with the beat as if he enjoyed it!

It was good for all concerned that Young Samuel chose that moment to point to a spot in the distance and say, "There."

Young Dean nodded, and the coach slowed... and slowed... and _slowed_ until it came to a stop at the side of the road. Dean had not known that they were moving so fast. Then Young Dean turned a key, and everything stopped—the music, the rumbling noise that he had first thought had come from the coach wheels; even the lights inside and the lanterns outside went out. The namesakes turned at the same time, opened their coach doors, and stepped out, leaving Dean and Samuel inside staring at each other in amazement.

"What the blazes _is_ this thing?" Samuel finally whispered.

"Hell if I know," Dean whispered back. "But let us follow." It took a moment to find the lever to open the door, but open it he did, noting the creak of the metal hinges as the door swung wide.

And the ground was much closer than he had expected. It was good that he looked down before stepping out, or he might have stumbled. Samuel chose to slide across to Dean's door and step out after him, then ventured a few steps further to look at the road, which seemed to be paved with gravel and pitch and bore painted lines, perchance to prevent passing wains from crowding one another. On closing the door, Dean marked the strange shape of the coach, which was built wholly of metal (blacked steel, unless he missed his guess), and the fact that there seemed to be no horse at all to pull it.

How very odd. Dean could only trust that it was driven by some machine not known in his own day rather than by magic. After all, if they could afford _real glass_ for the windows, they could probably afford some kind of clockwork to make it go. And it _would_ account for the rumbling noise.

The namesakes were stretching their backs and legs, which gave Dean a good chance to look at them and their clothes. Their boots were strange, with thicker soles and more rounded toes than his own, and their long trousers were of a coarse, heavy woven cloth that appeared to be dyed with indigo. Young Dean wore two short tunics—they might better be called shirts—and a kind of leather overgarment that seemed a bit too big for him; Young Samuel wore but one short tunic, it seemed, but his overgarment was of thick cloth and had an attached hood. And how _tall_ they both were! Dean and Samuel were hardly short by the standards of their day, but Young Dean was even taller than Samuel, and Young Samuel was practically a giant.

Taking no notice of Dean and Samuel, Young Dean looked around then at the open field and up at the cloudless sky and nodded once. "Good choice, Sammy."

"Nice out," Young Samuel said. "Good night for it."

Dean risked a glance upward. The stars were... ones he knew, but in completely different places in the sky. Given the location of Pegasus, he believed the time of year to be mid-October, but the rest baffled him.

"We are far to the west of England, I deem," Samuel finally murmured, "and not a little south. See thou, the Pole Star stands nearer the northern horizon." He pointed, and Dean saw what he meant; the Pole Star was roughly where they might have expected the third star of the Little Bear's tail.

"Passing strange," Dean murmured back. "Think thou that we are in Vinland?"

"I know not, but so far as I have heard, the Danes said naught of plains such as this. Mayhap this land is beyond even the Skrælings' ken. We might ask Cynehunde, though; he hails from the Danelaw and may know the tales better."

Dean wondered briefly what could cause his kin to move so far from England—in a _ship_, no doubt, which made his stomach turn—but that line of thought was broken when his namesake unlocked a chamber at the back of the coach and drew out a green-and-white box and a blanket. The latter he handed to Young Samuel before closing the chamber and withdrawing the key, and they walked around to the front of the coach and spread the blanket on the flat surface there. Young Dean set the box on the ground and opened the lid to reveal strangely-shaped brown bottles with metal caps set in a bed of crushed ice. Two of these he withdrew and handed one to Young Samuel. Then they sat down on the blanket, took the caps off the bottles, touched the mouths of the bottles together in silent salute, and drank.

Dean thought he caught the scent of ale.

Wondering, he sought to draw out a bottle himself, and to his very great surprise, he succeeded. Then he drew out another and handed it to Samuel, who gave him the _Art __mad__, brother?_ look but took the bottle from him when it seemed that the namesakes still paid them no heed, only leaned back against the glass to look at the stars. To remove the cap from the bottle took but a sharp twist, and Dean smiled happily at Samuel and drank.

It was cheap ale, but not so thin as he had had in some of the meanest inns where he had stayed. He took another drink and rethought his notion of the family's wealth.

They stayed that way for a long moment, Dean and Samuel watching their namesakes and the namesakes watching the sky. But after a time Young Samuel became troubled, and Young Dean noted it almost at once—and Dean noted of a sudden how very weary they both looked, old beyond their years, as though their doom were more than any man ought to bear.

"What?" quoth Young Dean.

Young Samuel sighed. "Nothing."

"Sam." After a pause, Young Dean spoke again. "This is about what Cas said, isn't it? You been beatin' yourself up about that this whole time."

"He was right."

"About _you_, maybe. Partly. But Jesse fixed what he could. You got through to him, dude. And Cas had been callin' him a _thing_, like he didn't even deserve to be called half-human."

"Dean..."

"Cas was wrong, Sam. Yeah, you made some bad choices, but that doesn't make you evil."

Young Samuel huffed. "'Bad choices' is kind of an understatement."

"Yeah, well. I... could have handled things better myself."

"Dude."

"_And_ Jesse's not gonna have some demon whispering in his ear, at least not now. We take out Lucifer, he should be fine."

"Dean, he's a cambion."

"_Merlin_ was a cambion, Sam. Look how he turned out."

Young Samuel sighed again and studied his ale.

"Sam. I meant what I said."

Young Samuel looked up at Young Dean and frowned. "When?"

"Few weeks back. About us keeping each other human. And I didn't just mean me ridin' herd on you. I can go pretty dark myself when I don't have someone to call me on things the way you do."

"Still? After... after everything?"

Young Dean met his gaze solemnly. "You're still my brother, Sammy."

Young Samuel smiled a little. "Thanks, Dean."

The namesakes turned their eyes back to the sky... and the dream faded.

Dean woke with a start and sensed Samuel do the same. But the figure crouched between them was no longer Castiel. It was Gabriel.

"Ye needed to know," Gabriel said quietly. "Castiel did not hear that conversation. And please, keep it to yourselves. What he saw, what he wanted you to see, was the stargazing—brothers simply being brothers, the bond that drove him to risk everything to save them. He had been pretty hard on Sam right before that, though, and he is not exactly good with apologies."

"And Sam took it to heart," said Samuel.

"Yes. I'm not sure Castiel quite appreciates how much he's hurt Sam. Hell, it took me a couple of years and a lecture from Dean to figure out how much I'd hurt both of 'em. But that... that conversation... I mean, without telling you things you should not know, it tells you what you wanted to know."

Dean frowned a little. "They spoke of having to stop Lucifer, as if... as if they meant to _kill_ him, and as if he were already loosed from his cage."

Gabriel sighed. "Yeah. They had a plan. It failed." He looked at Dean more closely then and added, "They had a Joanna and an Ellen, too. They went with the boys..." He stopped, plainly loath to say what happened.

But Dean could guess, to his horror. "_No_..." he breathed.

"They'll have the same story you have, guys, but they'll lose _everyone_. When they're not staying in some shabby inn, they'll _live_ in that car you saw. They'll lose Mary just like you did. They'll lose John. Sam will consider marriage, but his intended will be killed. Dean won't even get that far. And imagine—of the people who were at the Eagle and Child the night we arrived, the only person who'd be left with Sam and Dean within three years of the moment you saw is Robert. They'll even lose each other a few times."

"But what of you?" Samuel asked, so softly Dean could barely hear him.

Gabriel's gaze fell, and he did not answer. Samuel burst into tears.

Dean felt a tear roll down his own cheek as he slid across and wrapped an arm about Samuel's shoulders in comfort. "So, then. We know what we must do."

Samuel nodded and curled against Dean's shoulder, the way he had done as a child.

Dean rested his cheek against the top of Samuel's head and looked at Gabriel. "What of the weapon?"

"Castiel still has it," Gabriel said. "And he should keep it until we get Azazel trapped. But I will make a copy and show you how to use it tomorrow."

Dean nodded and rubbed Samuel's shoulder gently. Gabriel stood and turned to go back to his post.

"Gabriel."

The angel stopped and looked back.

Dean met his eyes. "Thank you."

Gabriel's smile was sad but fond. "Get some rest, muttonheads."

* * *

><p>Dean knew not when he and Samuel fell asleep, curled together like pups stolen from their dam. He only knew that the sky was barely lightening when Gabriel shook them both awake.<p>

"Morning, campers," Gabriel said cheerfully when Dean cracked an eye open. "We'd better get this over with so we can get on the road after breakfast."

Both brothers groaned as they sat up. "Ought we not break our fast first?" Samuel asked.

"Need not. C'mon, both of you." He picked up a piece of wood and a steel rod and walked away.

Dean groaned again as Samuel helped him to his feet. He was not looking forward to trying out this new weapon without having eaten.

Gabriel led them a short distance from the camp before snapping his fingers. A target appeared, though it seemed to be made of parchment over a board and was colored roughly in the shape of a man. The target rings marked distances from points on the head and chest that would be fatal arrow wounds.

"Is't a bow, then?" Dean frowned.

"Close," Gabriel replied.

Then he looked hard at the rod and the wood, and they joined together and changed shape to form a very odd weapon indeed. The wood had become a bell-shaped handle, and the metal... well, there was a long eight-sided tube, and a part with five filled chambers that looked like it turned, and a lever at the back that, when pulled down a little, caused another lever to spring forth at the front. When Gabriel handed it to him, Dean noted words marked on the barrel and a pentagram on the handle.

"_Non timebo mala_," Samuel read over Dean's shoulder. "—Should be _malum_, surely?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I didn't write it. I think the man who made it was not familiar with the Vulgate."

Samuel nodded thoughtfully.

Dean studied the thing for a few moments longer before shaking his head. "What is it?"

"It's called a gun," said Gabriel. "Here, let me show you how it works."

Dean handed it back, and Gabriel talked them through the way it was held at arm's length in one hand, the way to aim it, how one primed the shot. He pulled down the lever at the back until it caught, then squeezed the lever at the front toward the handle a little to show that it would move the back lever forward. Then he swiftly squeezed it hard to make the back lever strike the chambered part.

There was a loud bang and a flash of fire.

Smoke poured from the front of the gun, and Dean thought he smelled burnt brimstone and burnt charcoal. Samuel went over to the target and called that aught had struck it. Dean joined him and lent him his misericorde, and Samuel dug out what looked like a piece of lead.

Frowning, Dean went back to look at the gun again. The chamber that the back lever had struck appeared to be empty.

"So," Dean said slowly as Samuel rejoined them. "This part strikes something in the chamber that makes the fire, which speeds the lead through the tube, which aims the lead toward the target like an arrow."

Gabriel laughed in delight. "You _are_ sharp!"

Dean grinned. "Let me try it, then."

Gabriel handed it to him and showed him again how to hold it. Then Dean carefully pulled down the back lever (_hammer_, Gabriel called it), took aim, and squeezed the front lever (_trigger_). The bang jolted his wrist back, and Samuel reported that the lead had struck quite a bit higher than Dean had aimed, though the shot had not gone onto the white. He tried again with the three remaining shots, and each got nearer to the mark above the heart. Then Gabriel showed him how to reload the chambers, and he took another ten shots before letting Samuel have a go. By sunrise, both brothers were confident they could shoot and kill Azazel with the gun that Castiel kept as long as the devil was holding still.

"Aiming at a moving target's not that much different from doing so with a bow," Gabriel noted. "But we will try to make sure he can't run far if he runs at all."

Dean ran his thumb over the pentagram... and suddenly had flashes of showings of Young Dean with this same gun (or, rather, the real one)—trying and failing to shoot Azazel in two other hosts before finally succeeding with the help of his father's shade... but too late to stop the hellmouth he guarded from opening, too late to save Young Samuel's life by any means but trading his own soul to Tamar. The sheer wanhope in his namesake's eyes left Dean barely able to breathe.

"Dean?" said Samuel, drawing Dean back to the present.

Dean had never quite known what to do with the showings he had received in the past. These things were usually far more Samuel's concern; he had the Sight more strongly, and his dreams tended to be longer and more detailed than Dean's. But this time, though his heart hammered, Dean did know what to do.

"Dean?" Samuel asked again as Dean looked at him at last. "Hast seen aught?"

Dean took a deep breath and let it out again. Then he growled, "Let him run. He shall not scape me now."

Samuel hugged him, and Gabriel squeezed his shoulder.


	6. Chapter 4: Mission: Impossible

Chapter 4  
>Mission: Impossible<p>

Azazel was already in Jerusalem, Gabriel reported while the travelers broke their fast, but John had just reached Caesarea. They had time to take "the slightly scenic route," which would get them to Jerusalem only a day or two behind John. So they camped by the Sea of Galilee the second night and reached Nazareth on the third, and Father Seamus delighted in retelling tales from the life of Christ as they walked.

But they were only three miles beyond the Lord's hometown when their journey was cut short.

Gabriel was singing quietly under his breath—some ballad that began "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses"—when he suddenly stopped walking with a look of alarm that grew greater as he seemed to receive news from afar.

Dean, who was beside him, stopped as well. "Gabriel? What troubles you?"

Castiel and the other men stopped then.

Gabriel's face hardened as his eyes at last met Dean's. "We're out of time."

And without warning—not so much as a snap of the fingers—he took them into a dank, dark dungeon cell and held out his hands, ordering them to keep still. As Dean's eyes grew used to the darkness, he could see that only the six of them were present... but somewhere close by there were sounds of someone being beaten... and then a scream Dean had heard but seldom yet knew too well, met with raucous laughter that made his skin crawl. And he could smell both blood and brimstone.

Another voice barked commands in a harsh tongue Dean did not know, and the beating ceased. The sounds of weeping grew closer, and then the door opened and the sobbing, beaten man was thrown into the cell. And Dean's fear was proven true.

It took several terrible moments for the noises outside to show that the devils had gone and for Gabriel to lower his hands. But as soon as he did, Dean and Samuel rushed forward with a strangled cry of "DA!"

"Castiel," Gabriel said, and Castiel crossed to the door.

But Dean paid him no heed. All his thought was bent on the man on the floor—his father. "Da, what ails thee? What bleeds?"

John flinched away. "Touch me not, fiend! How come you in my eldest's guise?"

"Da," said Samuel, and Dean could hear that he wept. "Da, 'tis Dean in sooth. We've come. What ails thee?"

"Nay, _nay_, hast not my Samuel! 'S gone, 's safe, 'tis holy ground he walks! You leave him be!"

"Faith," said Father Seamus quietly, "'tis wild he is—he knows not friend from foe. Gabriel, canst do aught?"

John stilled with a ragged gasp. "Seamus?"

"Ah, to hell with it," Gabriel grumbled and snapped his fingers.

And the humans were suddenly blinded by the winter sun, and the horses were dancing away from them.

Robert and Father Seamus swiftly found medicines and bandages in the packs while John stared in disbelief at his sons' faces. "Dean? Sammy?"

"Aye," they said at the same time.

Fresh tears ran down John's purpled face. "I knew they lied—said they would kill you both afore my eyes an I made no deal. But how... how came ye..."

"Later, Da," Dean replied. "Made thou the deal?"

"Nay, son... but I know not how long I could have said them nay. 'Twas to be my soul for thy life and Samuel's."

"Here, John," said Robert. "Let us tend thee."

John's eyes closed wearily. "Nay, old friend. Let me die. An I go to Hell, at least I shall have earned it."

"No, Da," Samuel sobbed. "Please..."

"Shouldst not have come, Samuel, not broke thy vows to see me die thus."

"Am not forsworn, Da. My abbot gave me leave."

"Shouldst have left him, Dean."

"None of my doing, Da," Dean returned. "But I would not have left him had the choice been mine. Thou and he are all I have—wouldst liefer die alone than say farewell?"

"Dean..."

"_Nay_, Da. Not while I've aught to say on't." He looked up. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel sighed. "Normally, I would say no, Dean. I'm not a healer, and I'd be inclined to let your father make his own choices and live or die by them. But I'm a little concerned about what Alastair would do to him Downstairs, _and_ I know of a way he can still help us. So—sorry, John, you get to die another day."

Castiel blinked. "Isn't that—"

"Shut up, Castiel." And Gabriel tapped John on the head.

It did not seem at first that aught had changed, but John did gasp as though he felt the angel's power. And one broken rib beneath Dean's hand did shift and seem to knit, and the flow of blood staunched.

Dean blinked and frowned. "Why do you leave him thus?"

"Look, Azazel knows his goons beat John. He probably knows by now that something other than a human has helped him escape. We can't let him figure out it was us, but there are any number of lesser spirits that could have gotten John out and healed him _this_ far, but possibly no further. He's banged up, but he'll live; that's the main thing. And if he's going to play bait, better to leave him with enough genuine wounds for Azazel to buy that John's giving up for real."

John opened his eyes and frowned. "Bait? Dean, what the hell—who is this?"

The corner of Dean's mouth turned up in a humorless smile. "Let Robert and Father Seamus tend to thee, Father. And then we shall tell thee all."

John did not look best pleased, but he agreed.

Once John was well bandaged and loaded onto one of the horses, the travelers made their way back to Nazareth to let him rest at an inn until nightfall. Only a third of John's cursing on their way was caused by his own pain; most of the rest was due to his sons' tale—the short version, of course—though he had not a few choice words for Gabriel's plan.

"All right, then, Father," Samuel finally said, crossing his arms in challenge. "Hast a better way? Or wouldst liefer die on a fool's errand and never see us again?"

"Mind thy tongue, Samuel," John growled.

"_Hast_ a better plan? Thine own went far awry, methinks."

John grumbled and snarled and cursed, and Robert cursed back at him in three languages, but at last John had perforce to admit that he did not, in fact, know of a better plan.

Dean clapped his hands once. "Right, then. Where shall we set our trap? Here?"

Castiel shook his head. "Not by my counsel. As Gabriel said, we do not want Azazel to know that there are angels involved. It would be better for John's 'escape' to end closer to Jerusalem."

Gabriel sighed and nodded. "Bethlehem. He could have made it that far on his own."

Samuel frowned. "Gabriel? What troubles you?"

"It is... harder than I thought, being back here." There was far more to it than that, unless Dean missed his guess, but Gabriel only shook his head. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. I'll be fine."

Dean doubted that, at least the 'nothing' part, but he and Samuel looked at each other and decided not to press the matter.

Father Seamus nodded. "So, then. What will we need to do?"

Gabriel looked at Castiel, who vanished briefly and returned with a roll of parchment, which he spread on the table to show a building plan. "This building is vacant," he reported, "and open enough that there should be no difficulty laying out the trap."

Gabriel looked at the drawing and nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, this will work. Right, here's the plan..."

* * *

><p>Once the seven travelers were in Bethlehem, setting up the trap took a little under an hour. The room of the abandoned storehouse that they were using was large enough that even with the candles that John would have to light to complete the summoning, the sides of the room would remain in darkness. Samuel and Dean were to stand in opposite corners, while Father Seamus and Robert were in the other two; Gabriel stood to one side, and Castiel sat in the rafters with a piece of ironwork that Gabriel had crafted. Castiel had already entrusted the real gun to Dean's care, and he knew that he need not leave his hiding place to shoot Azazel with it. John, of course, was in the center of the room and would not stand so that Dean would have a clear shot.<p>

When at last all was ready, John looked at his sons. "Lads, an... an this should fail, or should any of us die, I would that ye know... I am sorry that I was not a better father. I have always loved you both, though I seldom showed it as I ought. And I am proud of you."

"Oh, _Da_," Samuel breathed and hugged John, and both men wept.

Dean then hugged John gently, taking care not to press on his wounds. "I would not that thou shouldst die," he whispered, "but know that whatever betide, Mother shall be avenged this night."

John sobbed against Dean's shoulder. "I am sorry, Dean. Sorry for everything."

"Da. All is well."

John patted his back then, and Dean released him. "Go now. And if He cares, may God speed you."

"He cares, Da," Samuel whispered. "We shall speak more on't after."

With that, Dean and Samuel went to their corners. Dean held the gun ready at his side, and John began the summoning.

Dean could not hear the chant John had to recite as he drew the sigil and placed and lit the candles, but he could see that his father's hands shook as he moved the flint and steel above the bowl of herbs that were to be burned. And when Azazel came, John seemed in truth to lack the strength to rise, even if he would.

"So, John," said Azazel, his brimstone eyes and mocking smile hideous in the candlelight. "We meet again at last."

"Aye," John answered wearily. "At last."

From his hiding place, Dean could just make out Father Seamus closing one of the gaps in the trap chalked on the floor. Robert, he knew, was doing the same on his side of the trap, and Castiel was lowering the ironwork—another trap, far harder for a devil to break—into place overhead. But he could hear no sound but Azazel's footfalls as he circled John.

"Thou art many things, John of Winchester," the devil said. "But I did not think thee fey."

John snorted. "Not though thy vassals beat me 'til I scarce knew my own name?"

Azazel laughed. "Beaten and broken is one thing. But to summon me thus? That I do call fey. Think thou that thou canst do aught against me in this state? 'Twould take a stronger man than thou to trap me."

"Nay." John sounded utterly defeated. "I would fain treat with thee."

"Indeed?"

"Aye. Thou hast not my sons, I know, but... I would give thee aught to leave them be. To cease thy search and let them live."

"Prithee, what wouldst thou give?"

"I... have learned of aught that can kill thee. A weapon. 'Tis that I offer."

Azazel laughed again, loud and long, and Dean had to stop himself from shooting the fiend then and there. If all went according to plan, he would have a better shot later.

Finally, Azazel stopped laughing. "There is no weapon that can kill me, John. Thou hast my terms—thy life for thy sons'. What sayest thou?"

And a voice that was not John's said, "_Exorcisamus te..._"

The devil lurched. "Who said that?"

Samuel stepped out of his hiding place, slowly reciting the exorcism. Azazel lunged toward him and struck the edge of the iron trap, but his attention was drawn first to the chalk trap below him. He tried to scuff at the lines, but the chalk would not erase, thanks to Gabriel.

Finally, Azazel snarled and reached a hand toward Samuel, choking him and lifting him off the ground with unseen force. "Think thou, little monk, that thou canst send me back to Hell so easily? 'Twould take but the slightest force to break thy neck, and little more to break this trap—a small earthquake would suffice."

Dean took aim and pulled back the hammer as quietly as he could.

"Let him go," John pleaded. "Take my life in his stead."

Azazel chuckled, not taking his eyes from Samuel. "Why, John, what is to prevent me from killing you _both?_"

Dean squeezed the trigger.


	7. Epilogue: Future Tense

Epilogue  
>Future Tense<p>

_May 25, 2001  
><em>_Annapolis, MD_

Beaming, newly-commissioned Lieutenant Dean M. Winchester of the United States Marine Corps made his way through the crowd to his wife, parents, and brother. The first person on either side of the family to go to college, Dean had just graduated _summa cum laude_ from the Naval Academy with a major in mechanical engineering and was looking forward to some time off before moving to Camp Lejeune and starting his hitch with the 2D Combat Engineer Battalion. Sam was about to graduate from Lawrence High School himself the next weekend, and they'd promised each other a cross-country road trip in Dean's black '67 Impala before Sam started to Stanford on a full scholarship in the fall.

It was the third happiest day of his life, after Sam's birth and his marriage to his high school sweetheart two years earlier.

Amanda found Dean first, and after she'd kissed him until their unborn son kicked hard enough to make her stop, John pulled him into a hug and rumbled "So damn proud of you, son" in his ear. Mary was crying and laughing all at the same time as she took her turn, and Dean nearly joined her in crying for joy. Then he looked over at Sam, who was grinning in that way that meant he had a surprise.

"Dude," said Sam, "look who's here!"

Dean looked—and gasped. "Uncle Gabe! Uncle Cas! You made it!"

"Of course we did, Deano," replied Uncle Gabe. "You didn't think your guardian angels would miss your graduation, did you?"

Dean laughed and hugged each of his 'uncles' in turn. They weren't blood, of course, and neither was Uncle Bobby, who couldn't get time off from his salvage yard in Sioux Falls to come; but Gabe and Cas had moved to the Winchesters' neighborhood just before Dean was born and had befriended John and Mary, who named them as godfathers for Dean and Sam, and they'd been looking out for both boys ever since. They were a little weird, what with Uncle Gabe's addiction to candy and Uncle Cas' tendency to wear a trench coat everywhere he went, and nobody knew much about them beyond the fact that they were brothers, but Dean loved them anyway.

Uncle Cas smiled that strange little smile of his as he looked Dean in the eye and said gravely, "You've done very well, Dean."

"Thanks, Uncle Cas." Dean clapped him on the shoulder and went back to put an arm around Amanda's shoulders. "So, when do we eat?"

Everyone laughed.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, 35 miles away in Ilchester, the coroner's van was leaving St. Mary's Convent, and a detective was finishing taking statements from the shaken sisters.<p>

"He started mumbling during the Lord's Prayer," the elderly British nun he was interviewing explained, "and that's when I noticed that the statue of Our Lady was weeping blood. I couldn't think what might be wrong... and then... oh, please don't think I'm mad, Leftenant, but he turned around, and his eyes were _white!_ No iris, no pupil, just white as they could be. And he started saying the strangest things about his father's will, and this knife just _appeared_ in his hand, and he smiled... such an evil, evil smile. So unlike our dear Father Lehne—he's been with us for thirty years, and never has he acted like _that_ before."

The detective was skeptical, but he prompted, "And that's when the other man walked in?"

"Oh, no. He didn't _walk_ in. He was just _there_ behind the altar, and he had an old gun in his hand, and he shot Father Lehne and disappeared." She leaned forward. "And the queer thing was the way Father Lehne died. He lit up from the inside, almost like he was on fire. But the gun looked like an ordinary revolver."

"Did the shooter say anything?"

"Just one word. 'Alastair.' And Father Lehne turned as if he'd been called by name—only that wasn't his name, you know, it was Fred. And Father Lehne looked most surprised and started to say something, but the other man shot him."

"What did he say?"

"Well, he didn't get very far. It was a guttural kind of sound, though, and I thought it was a 'guh,' but it might have been a 'kuh.'"

"Hm." The detective made a note. "Anything else you can remember?"

The nun thought for a moment. "I did think I might have heard wings flapping when the man disappeared, but I don't suppose it means anything."

"Probably not," the detective agreed. "Thank you, Sister."

The nun left, and the detective sighed as his partner entered the office.

"Still the crazy story?" asked the other man.

"Yeah. White eyes and weeping statues and assailants that appear out of nowhere. What's Doc Hembry got?"

"Not much yet, but it looks like an oddball caliber, like a .28."

The detective blinked. "They said it was an old revolver... what, an 1836 Colt Paterson?"

"Yeah, could be. _And_—get this—there was some kind of sulfur residue on the padre's lips."

"Gunpowder?"

"Nope. Raw sulfur. Like he'd been drinking the stuff."

The detective shook his head and gathered his notes.

"You know," his partner said casually, "they say this place was built over a hellmouth. Supposed to keep a lid on Lucifer's cage."

The detective rolled his eyes. "Catholics. C'mon, let's get some lunch."

"Nah, you go ahead. I'm gonna look around, see if I can figure out how that shooter got away so fast."

"Suit yourself."

Once the detective was out the door, however, his partner's eyes turned a furious black from corner to corner. Alastair wasn't supposed to die! The Colt was locked away in Daniel Elkins' safe, and the angels were in Annapolis! This was supposed to be their one chance to get through to their Father without attracting attention! How could Castiel have wrecked everything _again?_

And yet, if Alastair's death had caused the angels to relax their guard on the convent... this might be the right time after all. She—for the spirit had once been a woman—could perhaps take advantage of the situation. She knew the spell, in part because she was the only one of Alastair's apprentices whom he could trust to watch his back, what with the lower ranks preparing for some delicious disaster coming up in September and Crowley being too involved with the crossroads division to even care about the Apocalypse. She had the nuns' trust; the angels were off with the Winchesters...

Slowly, sinisterly, the demon sometime known as Meg began to smile. She had work to do.

**Explicit Gestum Angelorum Gabriel et Castiel Fratrorumque Decanum et Samuel  
><strong> —_aut est hoc?_

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Notes<p>

This started out as a response to a prompt by bellatemple on i_speak_tongue's Looking Glass comment-fic meme ("Dean v. some kind of big time old magic beast, a giant or a basilisk or a griffin or some such. Mirror: Oh, hey, he's actually a medieval knight."), but Gabriel wasn't really satisfied with the version I wrote there, especially once Season 6 started going off the rails mythologically. So this is what came out. Many thanks to jennytork for the beta and the brainstorming help!

One thing that made me sad as I was writing this story was realizing that no matter what horrors the twelfth-century hunters faced... _humans_ were the threat that made them want to stay home. Society in the twenty-first century may be far from perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it used to be.

Deliberate AU Points

_Peerage_ – No, there wasn't a baron named John of Winchester or a self-styled Geoffrey, Earl of Hampshire. Just go with it. (FitzUrse, however, was the real baron of Bulwick, though I have no idea if he was as much of a brute as most of his peers seem to have been.)

_The Eagle and Child_ – In RL, the Eagle and Child was (apparently) not founded until the 17th century, and the name comes from a story depicted in the crest of the Earl of Derby. But the Oxford pub's scholarly associations, especially with the Inklings, make it as good a model for this AU's 12th-century Roadhouse as any other.

_Mary's exorcism_ – Those are indeed the opening words of the _Rituale Romanum_ exorcism, but the best period piece from the Celtic Rite I can find is an exorcism of water from the Lorrha-Stowe Missal, which also opens with "_Exorcisamus te_," so I felt safe going with a version SPN fans would recognize.

_Robin Hood_ – Not that I want to set up John or Dean as the "real" Robin Hood, especially since it's far too early for them to cross swords with Prince John, but the echoes and allusions (at least to the Errol Flynn version!) are intentional.

Deliberate Non-AU Points

_Omens and Robber Barons_ – Manuscript E of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is an absolute gold mine for post-Conquest history and major supernatural stuff. The St. Lawrence Day flood in 1125 is real, as is the comment in the annal for 1137 about the state of despair at the lawless behavior of the barons under King Stephen (and that is my own translation). And while technically not an omen, the currency forgery problem was real and resulted in the guilty mint-men being deprived of certain important pieces of their anatomy.

_Jews_ – There was a sizeable contingent of Jews living in Winchester in the Middle Ages, and it was one of the few cities in England where the Jews were treated consistently well; in fact, from what I've read, it was the only place where anti-Jewish riots _didn't_ break out in the panic after Richard I's coronation. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that African-Spanish Jews who weren't willing to live under Islamic/Turkish rule would flee to a place like Winchester.

_The Second Crusade_ – I chose this crusade partly because of its timing—Rievaulx was a good place to send Samuel, given both his love of learning and his likely desire to join an order that was serious about serving God, and the great abbot Aelred had just accepted the post when the Second Crusade started—and because Bernard of Clairvaux, who had been coerced into preaching the crusade on the Continent, blamed its failure on the immoral behavior of the noblemen who went on it. What better cover for both a non-believer like John and a demon like Azazel?

Character Names

_Mary mac Duibne_ – Evidently the Campbells can trace their lineage to the family Mac Duibne.

_Father Seamus_ – Jim Murphy being an Irish name, it makes sense for his alt-historical counterpart to be an Irish priest.

_Dean_ – There are two possible etymologies for this name. One is the late Latin _decanus_, a leader of ten men, which in this period would make the name _Decan_ (and this, I should note, is the tack taken by malkingrey in her astoundingly good _Hamlet_ crossover AU "Elsinore"). The other is the Anglo-Saxon _denu_, a valley. The latter is the etymology used in _Quenya Lapseparma_, and it seems more likely to me for this period, since _decan_ appears to have been used solely in a monastic context (at least from its definition in _A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_ by J. R. Clark Hall).

_Geoffrey_ – Not a deliberate reference to JDM or anyone else. It just seemed like a more likely Norman nobleman's name than Fred, Rob, or Mitch.

_William de Harvelle_ – William (or Guillaume) is an established Norman name, and Harvelle seems most likely to be a Francophone surname.

_Gwynedd_ – Well, Missouri had to show up _somehow_, right? Gwynedd is the name of an ancient Welsh kingdom, and I'm assuming that she's descended from Roman citizens of African extraction who fled to Wales when the Saxons invaded. She might not look as "Moorish" as Rufus after so many generations of intermarriage, but her coloring would likely still be darker than the average Saxon woman.

_Cynewulf_ – Cynewulf was an eighth-century king of Wessex whose exploits are recorded in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. His name also means "wolf of the kindred," which is fairly fitting as an alias for John.

_Asce_ – Yep. That's simply the Saxon spelling of Ash.

_Cynehunde_ – Caleb's not a Biblical name I've encountered in medieval literature. That doesn't mean there were no men of this period who were named Caleb, but it made more sense to me to go with a rough translation of the name into Saxon.

_Todd_ – This name comes from a Middle English word for "fox," which in Spanish is _el zorro_—and I picture Dean's mask looking a lot more like the mask worn by Tyrone Power in _The Mark of Zorro_ than like Batman's mask. (_Battmann_ in both Old and Middle English would have meant someone who carries a club.)

_Tamar_ – "Tammi," of course, is too modern, but assuming it's either the demon's right name or her preferred alias, and knowing that she was making deals at least as early as the Black Death (if Ruby told the truth), this is the most likely version of the name she would use before the modern era.

Place Names

_Wintanceaster_ – This was the name of the city prior to the Conquest (spelling per _Introduction to Old English_ by Peter S. Baker).

_Ledecester_ – This was the Saxon name of Leicester, which is the earldom to which Hamilton belonged—and if you've read the Different Roads AU, you know that Hamilton is the fanon surname for Caleb that Enola and I settled on.

_Grentabrige_ – One of two twelfth-century forms of the town name that would eventually become Cambridge.

Linguistic Choices

This being only eighty years or so after the Conquest, and French still being primarily the language of the nobility, the actual English language spoken by most people would not yet resemble the Middle English of Chaucer and Gower. John and Dean, being proudly Saxon, would favor a dialect that stayed as close to Old English as possible. Samuel, being proudly educated in both Latin and French, would incorporate far more Latinate words into his everyday English speech, not counting the random bits of actual Latin that academics still have a tendency to throw out as proof of their education. Although I've gone with a deliberately archaic style of Modern English for the sake of readability (and writeability, to be honest—I'm not up to composing in Middle English yet!), I've tried to choose my wording carefully to reflect the differences between Sam and Dean's acquired dialects. _Devil_ vs. _demon_ may be the most obvious example—the Greek-derived word _demon_ did exist in Anglo-Saxon, but _deofol_ was by far the more common term, as you can probably guess from the compounds above.

And of course, it leaves the door open for "Do thou speak English" to be a running complaint on Dean's part!

Speaking of which (for those who don't know), _thou_ is actually the informal second person singular pronoun in Middle English and early Modern English. Samuel and Dean use it as family; Azazel uses it to talk down to people; older adults use it with Samuel and Dean to show that they still think of them as kids; and when Dean and Joanna start talking to each other as more than friends, they shift from _you_ to _thou_. Everywhere else, I've defaulted to _you_ (or _ye_ for the plural).

Literacy

Winchester had been an academic powerhouse since the days of Alfred the Great, so it makes sense to me that John's family would have taken pride in being able to both read and write, if only in English. And that's part of their noble heritage that I can see John making sure to pass on to the boys; it probably wouldn't have taken much for him to get Father Seamus to teach them those basics. But full literacy in those days would have meant having those skills not just in English but also in Latin. So Dean, not having the patience for Latin, would have been considered illiterate despite knowing how to read.


End file.
